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Thursday, April 3, 2014

The Way of Light Easter Sunrise Craft

As we approach the Season of Easter, I have been creating activities to teach that Easter is more than just one morning on our calendar. I have been using the The Way of Light, which is a companion to The Way of the Cross. You can read about the beginning of the project and get the printable coloring book here.

For this craft project, I wanted to create something that a family or classroom could hang up starting at the beginning of the Season of Easter and leave up all the way until Pentecost. The fourteen stations of Light made for great sun rays, I added a quote that I love about Easter from soon-to-be Saint JPII on the base of the sun, and we had a perfect sun rise. Each of the rays also has a corresponding Scripture verse, so your family/classroom can look up that story as you talk about the station during Easter.

I decided to jazz up the background a bit, but you certainly could just glue the sun on normal large 12"x18" construction paper or poster board. If you are looking to get an art project out of this too, here is an idea.

Supplies:
The printables at the end of the post
A large piece of construction paper, cardboard, or poster board
Markers and crayons
Glue (preferably liquid, not glue sticks)

I used a large piece of cardboard, garnered from a big shoe box. You could start with nice white poster board, but I liked the texture that the corrugated cardboard would create. (Plus maybe because it was free, and I did not have to make a trip to the store.) It will also make a great object lesson about the beauty (the Resurrection) that God can make from brokenness (the Crucifixion).

Hold the cardboard with the long side going horizontal (bathtub style in my classroom). Start making a scribbly half circle with yellow marker. No pattern, just gentle arcs scribbled in. This works for kids of all ages.

Then add a layer with the orange marker, overlapping partially with the yellow...

Then the same with red, and then purple....

And finally a bit of blue...

This step is hard to see in the pictures, but it made a big difference close up. After scribbling with the markers, we went back with similar colored crayons and went over sections. It blended and softened the colors, making it look much more like a sunrise.

We added some black crayon at the very, top showing where the sun hadn't quite reached the night sky.

Next, print and cut out the printables below. I printed on pale yellow and gold paper, but you certainly could copy on white and have the kids color them in.

Arrange the rays in order (they are in order on the paper, so cutting them out one at a time is good, or you can use the Way of Light book to help.

Glue on to your scribbled-cardboard-turned-sky, and you have a beautiful and meaningful sunrise.

"Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece." -Saint John Paul the Great

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